As a Franchisor with a 17-hour a day, 7-day per week decade long run before retirement I found myself opening units serving 450 cities, 110 markets, 23 states and 4-countries. Later as a Franchising Consultant and prior as a Board of Director for the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers, I met many a failed or disgruntled struggling franchisee. Many of these franchisees blamed their Franchisors, they blamed their partners and the blamed the Government Regulators and yet never stopped to look in their own mirrors.

Indeed I see the situation as personally and financially catastrophic and yet I take a more balanced approach to all this really. You see we live in the greatest nation in the History of Mankind, generally due to all that capitalism has provided, economies of scale, productivity, choice, competition, etc. In America we have the right to unlimited success and with this privilege comes the right to fail miserably as well. If we over regulate we cause more failure not less. We create weakness, weak markets, weak businesses and well that = weak quality of life and to that point I say this:

Well, it certainly is easy to throw around the F-word (fraud) fairly easily. Yet what I have found more often than not, having been a Franchisor and on the board of directors of the AAFD is that generally it really is the Franchisees Fault most all the time. So, perhaps we should consider this in 2006.